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caryophyllene

herbal terpene

Found in 44 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

Properties

Odor description
Spicy pepper-like, woody, camphoraceous, with a citrus background
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
64.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 17 with sources
CAS number
13877-93-5
Retention index
1420
Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match
FEMA number
2252
GRAS publication
GRAS 3
FEMA primary name
B-CARYOPHYLLENE

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

Spicy pepper-like, woody, camphoraceous, with a citrus background shown above FlavorDB 2.0
20
spicy, wood, woody FlavorDB 2.0
11
spicy-woody-sweet FlavorDB 2.0
1
herbal FlavorDB 2.0
1
fresh FlavorDB 2.0
1
sweet woody spice clove dry Flavordb Odor Column
—

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

17 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

64.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
64.0 ppb water_odor Leffingwell —

In a food matrix

0.120 ppb – 99.0 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold Matrix Source Paper
0.120 ppb water (food: lemon) Literature corpus 20862741, 30009387, 31502246 +1
1.2 ppb water (food: grape) Literature corpus 15740053, 23122094
2.0 ppb water (food: mango) Literature corpus 29211747
2.5 ppb water (food: tea) Literature corpus 26110869, 35398897, 38690105 +2
3.6 ppb water (food: ginger) Literature corpus 41193520
4.0 ppb water (food: lamb) Literature corpus 28344493
4.7 ppb water (food: beer) Literature corpus 15241914, 15740053, 18998404 +91
4.9 ppb water (food: pork) Literature corpus 22498135, 38556284
16.9 ppb water (food: tomato) Literature corpus 39789073
22.4 ppb water (food: rum) Literature corpus 24688522, 40940369
26.0 ppb water (food: rice) Literature corpus 38346996, 40594787, 40617844
28.7 ppb water (food: mushroom) Literature corpus 15241914, 15740053, 18998404 +91
79.5 ppb water (food: lime) Literature corpus 30972045
99.0 ppb water (food: unknown) Literature corpus 15241914, 18998404, 22391602 +66
1406 ppb water (food: bread) Literature corpus 38519512
Flagged: 129× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
273938 ppb water (food: pepper) Literature corpus 32499494
Flagged: 25202× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (16.872500000000002 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 17 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food Concentration (ppb) OAV Source
mushroom 1441.0 85.4 ⚡ Corpus paper
bread 1406.0 83.3 ⚡ Corpus paper
tea 714.4 42.3 ⚡ Corpus paper
lime 88.0 5.21 Corpus paper
tomato 42.0 2.49 Corpus paper
rum 41.0 2.43 Corpus paper
pepper 27.3 1.62 Corpus paper
rice 23.9 1.41 Corpus paper
grape 18.9 1.12 Corpus paper
ginger 11.8 0.70 Corpus paper
pork 11.5 0.68 Corpus paper
lamb 4.5 0.27 —
beer 4.2 0.25 —
mango 1.4 0.08 —
lemon 0.1 0.00 —

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain caryophyllene. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of caryophyllene in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

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